Act 1 — Scene II. The Earl of Gloucester's castle.

Edm. Thou, nature, art my goddess; to thy law[2671] My services are bound. Wherefore should I[2671] Stand in the plague of custom, and permit[2671][2672] The curiosity of nations to deprive me,[2671][2673] For that I am some twelve or fourteen moonshines[2671] 5 Lag of a brother? Why bastard? wherefore base?[2671][2674] When my dimensions are as well compact,[2671][2675] My mind as generous and my shape as true,[2671] As honest madam's issue? Why brand they us[2671][2676] With base? with baseness? bastardy? base, base?[2671][2677] 10 Who in the lusty stealth of nature take[2671] More composition and fierce quality[2671] Than doth, within a dull, stale, tired bed,[2671][2678] Go to the creating a whole tribe of fops,[2671][2679] Got 'tween asleep and wake? Well then,[2671][2680] 15 Legitimate Edgar, I must have your land:[2671] Our father's love is to the bastard Edmund[2671] As to the legitimate: fine word,'legitimate!'[2671][2681] Well, my legitimate, if this letter speed[2671] And my invention thrive, Edmund the base[2671][2676] 20 Shall top the legitimate. I grow; I prosper:[2671][2682] Now, gods, stand up for bastards![2671]

Glou. Kent banish'd thus! and France in choler parted![2671][2683][2684] And the king gone to-night! subscribed his power![2671][2684][2685] Confined to exhibition! All this done[2671][2684][2686] 25 Upon the gad! Edmund, how now! what news?[2671][2684] Edm. So please your lordship, none.

Glou. Why so earnestly seek you to put up that letter?[2688] Edm. I know no news, my lord. Glou. What paper were you reading? 30 Edm. Nothing, my lord. Glou. No? What needed then that terrible dispatch of[2689] it into your pocket? the quality of nothing hath not such need to hide itself. Let's see: come, if it be nothing, I shall[2690] not need spectacles. 35 Edm. I beseech you, sir, pardon me: it is a letter from[2691] my brother, that I have not all o'er-read; and for so much[2692] as I have perused, I find it not fit for your o'er-looking.[2693] Glou. Give me the letter, sir. Edm. I shall offend, either to detain or give it. The[2694] 40 contents, as in part I understand them, are to blame.[2694][2695] Glou. Let's see, let's see. Edm. I hope, for my brother's justification, he wrote this but as an essay or taste of my virtue.[2696] Glou. [Reads] 'This policy and reverence of age makes[2697] 45 the world bitter to the best of our times; keeps our fortunes[2698] from us till our oldness cannot relish them. I begin to find an idle and fond bondage in the oppression of aged tyranny; who sways, not as it hath power, but as it is suffered. Come[2699] to me, that of this I may speak more. If our father would 50 sleep till I waked him, you should enjoy half his revenue for ever, and live the beloved of your brother, Edgar.' Hum! Conspiracy!—'Sleep till I waked him, you should[2700] enjoy half his revenue!'—My son Edgar! Had he a hand to write this? a heart and brain to breed it in? When[2701] 55 came this to you? who brought it?[2702] Edm. It was not brought me, my lord; there's the cunning of it; I found it thrown in at the casement of my closet. Glou. You know the character to be your brother's? Edm. If the matter were good, my lord, I durst swear 60 it were his; but, in respect of that, I would fain think it[2703][2704] were not.[2703] Glou. It is his.[2705] Edm. It is his hand, my lord; but I hope his heart is[2706] not in the contents. 65 Glou. Hath he never heretofore sounded you in this[2707] business? Edm. Never, my lord: but I have heard him oft maintain[2708] it to be fit, that, sons at perfect age, and fathers declining,[2709] the father should be as ward to the son, and the[2710] 70 son manage his revenue.[2711] Glou. O villain, villain! His very opinion in the letter! Abhorred villain! Unnatural, detested, brutish villain! worse than brutish! Go, sirrah, seek him; ay, apprehend[2712] him: abominable villain! Where is he? 75 Edm. I do not well know, my lord. If it shall please[2713] you to suspend your indignation against my brother till you can derive from him better testimony of his intent, you[2714] should run a certain course; where, if you violently proceed[2715] against him, mistaking his purpose, it would make a great 80 gap in your own honour and shake in pieces the heart of[2716] his obedience. I dare pawn down my life for him that he[2717] hath wrote this to feel my affection to your honour and to[2718] no further pretence of danger.[2719] Glou. Think you so? 85 Edm. If your honour judge it meet, I will place you where you shall hear us confer of this and by an auricular[2720] assurance have your satisfaction, and that without any further delay than this very evening. Glou. He cannot be such a monster—[2721] 90 Edm. Nor is not, sure.[2722] Glou. To his father, that so tenderly and entirely loves[2722] him. Heaven and earth! Edmund, seek him out; wind me[2722][2723] into him, I pray you: frame the business after your own[2724] wisdom. I would unstate myself, to be in a due resolution. 95 Edm. I will seek him, sir, presently, convey the business[2725] as I shall find means, and acquaint you withal.[2726] Glou. These late eclipses in the sun and moon portend[2727][2728] no good to us: though the wisdom of nature can reason it[2729] thus and thus, yet nature finds itself scourged by the sequent[2730] 100 effects: love cools, friendship falls off, brothers divide: in cities, mutinies; in countries, discord; in palaces,[2731] treason; and the bond cracked 'twixt son and father. This[2732][2733] villain of mine comes under the prediction; there's son[2733] against father: the king falls from bias of nature; there's[2733] 105 father against child. We have seen the best of our time:[2733] machinations, hollowness, treachery and all ruinous disorders[2733] follow us disquietly to our graves. Find out this[2733] villain, Edmund; it shall lose thee nothing; do it carefully.[2734] And the noble and true-hearted Kent banished! his offence, 110 honesty! 'Tis strange. [Exit.[2735] Edm. This is the excellent foppery of the world, that[2736] when we are sick in fortune—often the surfeit of our own[2737] behaviour—we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon and the stars: as if we were villains by necessity,[2738] 115 fools by heavenly compulsion, knaves, thieves and treachers,[2739] by spherical predominance, drunkards, liars and adulterers,[2740] by an enforced obedience of planetary influence; and all that we are evil in, by a divine thrusting on: an admirable evasion of whoremaster man, to lay his goatish 120 disposition to the charge of a star! My father compounded[2741] with my mother under the dragon's tail, and my nativity was under Ursa major; so that it follows I am rough and lecherous. Tut, I should have been that I am, had the[2742] maidenliest star in the firmament twinkled on my bastardizing.[2743] 125 Edgar—[2744][2745][2746]

And pat he comes like the catastrophe of the old comedy:[2744][2745] my cue is villanous melancholy, with a sigh like Tom o'[2745][2747] Bedlam. O, these eclipses do portend these divisions! fa,[2745][2748][2749] sol, la, mi.[2749][2750] 130 Edg. How now, brother Edmund! what serious contemplation are you in? Edm. I am thinking, brother, of a prediction I read this other day, what should follow these eclipses.[2727] Edg. Do you busy yourself about that?[2751] 135 Edm. I promise you, the effects he writ of succeed[2752] unhappily; as of unnaturalness between the child and the[2753] parent; death, dearth, dissolutions of ancient amities; divisions[2753][2754] in state, menaces and maledictions against king and[2753] nobles; needless diffidences, banishment of friends, dissipation[2753] 140 of cohorts, nuptial breaches, and I know not what.[2753][2755] Edg. How long have you been a sectary astronomical?[2753] Edm. Come, come; when saw you my father last?[2753] Edg. Why, the night gone by.[2756] Edm. Spake you with him? 145 Edg. Ay, two hours together.[2757] Edm. Parted you in good terms? Found you no displeasure in him by word or countenance?[2758] Edg. None at all. Edm. Bethink yourself wherein you may have offended[2759] 150 him: and at my entreaty forbear his presence till some[2760] little time hath qualified the heat of his displeasure, which at this instant so rageth in him that with the mischief of[2761] your person it would scarcely allay.[2762] Edg. Some villain hath done me wrong. 155 Edm. That's my fear. I pray you, have a continent[2763] forbearance till the speed of his rage goes slower and, as I[2763] say, retire with me to my lodging, from whence I will fitly[2763] bring you to hear my lord speak: pray ye, go; there's my[2763][2764] key: if you do stir abroad, go armed.[2763] 160 Edg. Armed, brother![2763] Edm. Brother, I advise you to the best: go armed: I[2763][2765] am no honest man if there be any good meaning towards[2766] you: I have told you what I have seen and heard; but[2767] faintly, nothing like the image and horror of it: pray you,[2767] 165 away. Edg. Shall I hear from you anon? Edm. I do serve you in this business. [Exit Edgar.[2768] A credulous father, and a brother noble, Whose nature is so far from doing harms 170 That he suspects none; on whose foolish honesty My practices ride easy. I see the business. Let me, if not by birth, have lands by wit: All with me's meet that I can fashion fit. [Exit.[2769]